20/10/2026
At fifty-eight and fifty-seven, we sat down and started practicing songs we liked in the Australiana genre, along with selected Irish and other fun popular tunes.
We rehearsed for a long time before we decided we could find a market and get a spot to busk.
Sonya has been a singer all her life. For me, I'd spent most of my time on the other side of the stage as a professional roadie, and my flute had been in the cupboard for years.
The day arrived, and we loaded up the van and headed for the market. Sure enough, we got a puncture on the way. There I was on the side of the road in my white shirt, trying to keep clean and change the tire... not a great start.
Up on a stage at the back of this huge shed, we were stranded. The market stall holders were halfway up, so we had no connection to the crowd... getting worse.
Of course the speaker didn't go when I first plugged it in. By this time the fear level is rising, and my mouth is getting drier, which, as a wind instrument player, is not what you want
When we finished our gig, no one clapped. They didn't boo — they just looked at their phones or talked to whoever was standing next to them.
The aim was never applause. The aim was to find out whether the fear was load-bearing: could we, at our time of life, rekindle a passion we had held for years?
We kept going. Behind the fear is the whole skill of a sovereign creative life: failing visibly and continuing, without anyone's permission.
If the goal was to be discovered or hugely appreciated, the ledger would say "wrong decision." But the goal was to find out if we could do it. And now we know we can.
How about you? What did you try? How did it go wrong? And why do you still think it was the right call?
P.S. We got our first money from busking as The Free Radicals: \$2 from a dear old lady in a motorized wheelchair, plus leftover produce from the stallholders.
